Many existing operating systems provide a user with a single buffer in which a clip item of data can be stored temporarily. Using the buffer, the user can copy a clip item of data from one location to another. A clip item of data may be a section of text or image, a file in user's folder, or a folder. The buffer is often called a “clipboard”. Many word processors and other application programs use a clipboard for cutting and pasting. When the user selects an item of data and performs a Copy or Cut operation, the temporary buffer is created. The operating system through the word processor or other application copies the selected clip item of data to the buffer. When the user pastes the copied clip item at a selected location, the operating system copies it from the buffer to the selected location. The buffer is overwritten every time the user performs the Copy or Cut operation. Accordingly, the user is not able to easily save more than one clip item of data at a time, consistently across all operating systems.
There exist multiple clipboard capabilities within existing applications. However, the copying and pasting is limited to those applications. For example, in the Legal Edition (trademark of Corel Corporation) of WordPerfect Office 2000 (trademark of Corel Corporation), there exists a multiple clipboard, but it is limited to 26 clip items, and data copied there cannot be pasted into other applications.
Also, there exist some clipboard applications that can be used to copy data from one application to another. Some clipboard applications show symbols of multiple clip items clipped in a clipboard to notify the user. However, the user needs to remember what are stored in the clipboard prior to using the clips, which often prevents easy access to the stored clip items.
It is therefore desirable to provide a mechanism which can provide a better way of manipulating multiple clip items of data.